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Does the 'PvPers are Sociopaths' argument bother anyone else?
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Lustralis
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#61 - 2012-06-06 12:58:13 UTC
Virgil Travis wrote:

It's actually attitudes like this being waved around that has made so many want to gank hulks in the first place and I understand the sentiment so well.


What attitude? Let's face it the reason you want to gank Hulks is for the giggles and to get points in your peer group. It's nothing to do with what The Other is doing in his Hulk. I mean why would you care one little bit what some other guy half way across the game galaxy is doing in his little barge? Just admit it and we can move along and start talking about something more interesting, because these Hulk/Mining threads are getting really boring.
Jame Jarl Retief
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#62 - 2012-06-06 12:59:52 UTC
Knus'lar wrote:
I see this quite a bit in the rage threads lately. From my perspective, i see a lot of carebears mud flinging, and calling anyone who ganks or does pvp a sociopath. Because apparently only a sociopath would do such a thing. But really, it just seems like a vain attempt at taking the moral high ground.

For real, do some people honestly believe people act the same in game as they do in real life?


It's an interesting question. I do believe that people WOULD act like they do in games in real life, provided their actions had the same consequences in real life as in video games.

Someone who would set a village of innocent peasants on fire and laugh as they run around screaming probably has a screw loose someplace. Doesn't necessarily mean he'd go on a murdering rampage, but I'd say he definitely has some personality traits that are bothersome at best.

Having said that, I have no problem when people fight over territory in game, for example. I do have a problem with people who do it for "lols" or just to grief someone. I especially have a problem with people who do it to "collect tears" and stuff like that. Don't tell me it's normal, to do something with a sole purpose of making someone cry and deriving sufficient joy from their misery to make an in-game lifestyle out of it. And I have absolutely no respect for suicide gankers who only go after miners and missioners. They're just spineless scum in-game, and probably not much better in real life.

My friends who are gamers, and myself, we pretty much act in a game the way we act in real life. Even in games like Battlefield 3 where you really can't play the game without actively shooting someone. But even so, the guy who really doesn't like violence plays a medic or support - reviving people, supplying them with ammo and laying down suppressive fire which helps even if he doesn't actually kill anyone with it. It's just who we are. None of us can just flip a switch and become a total douchebag and call it roleplaying, we just don't work this way (that I know of). If you are a douche in game, odds are deep down there's something douchy about you in real life as well.

And I guess that's the main difference between in-game and in-life behaviour. In life you have very real, very tangible consequences for being a dork, and they're usually permanent. In-game, you can just train up a trial character, use it to gank miners, and delete him when security drops too low, resulting in zero consequences in a game that trumpets it is all about choice and consequence.
Darth Tickles
Doomheim
#63 - 2012-06-06 13:00:06 UTC
You sign on to play a no-holds-barred pvp game where you can lose everything you spent years building in one fiery flash, and no one is going to magically give it back to you or even ******* care for that matter.

It makes everything you do in this game that much more meaningful and exciting. Some people who knowingly sign up to this game under these rules seeking that gameplay find out they can't, in fact, handle that loss when it does happen, and they get very upset over losing in this game. Is playing the game according to the rules mean or sociopathic? No.

Is making fun of those people "mean"? Absolutely. Is it "sociopathic"? No.

As someone else wisely put it, you don't need a personality disorder, which are pretty controversial even in the real world, to be a **** in a video game.
Talon SilverHawk
Patria o Muerte
#64 - 2012-06-06 13:03:20 UTC
Darth Tickles wrote:

As someone else wisely put it, you don't need a personality disorder, which are pretty controversial even in the real world, to be a **** in a video game.


Just a mouse and a keyboard Lol

Tal


Jalabaster
Aether Ventures
#65 - 2012-06-06 13:06:19 UTC
Diablo Ex wrote:
Those who find enjoyment in ruining the day for others, and generally being a "sociopath" in game, is simply revealing their true inner nature. If they were to find themselves in an equally unconsequential situation, I expect that they would act out in real life as they do in game. Their only "restraint" if they are honest, is self-preservation. If they saw that they could gank and kill, without a danger of being caught, or permanently killed, they would not only do it, they would enjoy the thrill of it.


Causing virtual harm to a person is much different than causing real harm to a person. In much the same way that virtual consequences differ from real consequences.
I think it is fair to say that most of the people ganking and performing various unsavory space acts would in fact NOT act the same way in real life if things were anonymous.

Even if anonymity were obtained in the real world, it does not shield one from real life emotions like guilt, regret, and sorrow.
For example, take service men and women around the world who are put in positions where they must kill a human in defense of themselves or their country. They have done nothing illegal in the eyes of the law, and the killing has been done about as anonymously as any killing can be done. And yet they still feel strong negative emotions concerning their actions.

"when a ship is blown up, the pilot usually winds up replacing it. This drives the economy, steadies inflation, and gives industrialists a reason to manufacture. In contrast, creating isk while never losing any items has the unfortunate reverse effect on the market, plus it isn't really any fun." Jala
Talon SilverHawk
Patria o Muerte
#66 - 2012-06-06 13:12:08 UTC  |  Edited by: Talon SilverHawk
Jalabaster wrote:
Diablo Ex wrote:
Those who find enjoyment in ruining the day for others, and generally being a "sociopath" in game, is simply revealing their true inner nature. If they were to find themselves in an equally unconsequential situation, I expect that they would act out in real life as they do in game. Their only "restraint" if they are honest, is self-preservation. If they saw that they could gank and kill, without a danger of being caught, or permanently killed, they would not only do it, they would enjoy the thrill of it.


Causing virtual harm to a person is much different than causing real harm to a person. In much the same way that virtual consequences differ from real consequences.
I think it is fair to say that most of the people ganking and performing various unsavory space acts would in fact NOT act the same way in real life if things were anonymous.

Even if anonymity were obtained in the real world, it does not shield one from real life emotions like guilt, regret, and sorrow.
For example, take service men and women around the world who are put in positions where they must kill a human in defense of themselves or their country. They have done nothing illegal in the eyes of the law, and the killing has been done about as anonymously as any killing can be done. And yet they still feel strong negative emotions concerning their actions.



You don't mention the scum that go onto, for example, RIP Facebook pages and troll behind the anonymity of the web, they would never do it to ppls faces and they have no sense of guilt or empathy.

I am not comparing anyone in Eve to the above, by the way.

Tal
Jame Jarl Retief
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#67 - 2012-06-06 13:23:34 UTC
Jalabaster wrote:
Causing virtual harm to a person is much different than causing real harm to a person. In much the same way that virtual consequences differ from real consequences.
I think it is fair to say that most of the people ganking and performing various unsavory space acts would in fact NOT act the same way in real life if things were anonymous.

Even if anonymity were obtained in the real world, it does not shield one from real life emotions like guilt, regret, and sorrow.
For example, take service men and women around the world who are put in positions where they must kill a human in defense of themselves or their country. They have done nothing illegal in the eyes of the law, and the killing has been done about as anonymously as any killing can be done. And yet they still feel strong negative emotions concerning their actions.


Good points. But you mention guilt, regret and sorrow if you hurt someone in real life. Some of us, or dare I say it, most of us (but perhaps not in this game) experience all of those when they do something questionable in the game as well! Why wouldn't you? When you do something unethical, or intentionally harmful, how can you not feel remorse, when you KNOW it is affecting a real living breathing person somewhere out there? OK, in a single player game I can sort of let that slide, but not an MMO. Like stealing from your corpmates, people who trusted you, protected you and fought alongside you. Don't tell me a person shouldn't feel guild for such a betrayal of trust just because it's a game.

The point about servicemen and guilt, despite just following orders is another good one. That's what I consider a normal human response. However, you must also admit that the service also attracts some real nutjobs - people who enjoy killing for the sake of killing. There's plenty of evidence showing soldiers doing some pretty fracking horrific things to civilians, or "suspected militants", which is just a phrase used to describe someone you don't like the looks of and doesn't require a shred of proof to support what is otherwise just a summary execution. There's a lot of flexibility there, and precious little accountability unless you're dumb enough to film it and post it on Youtube.
Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#68 - 2012-06-06 13:26:18 UTC
Jame Jarl Retief wrote:
Don't tell me a person shouldn't feel guild for such a betrayal of trust just because it's a game.
They shouldn't because it's just a game, and those are legal moves within that game. The other players knew it and accepted it.

You're arguing that people should feel guilty when feinting right and then passing left in football.
Khanh'rhh
Sparkle Motion.
#69 - 2012-06-06 13:28:24 UTC
If you need to be a sociopath to gank, then I would like to see the psychological profile of someone who plays a game, willingly taking up a repetitive task that pays the least of all professions and then cries when someone tries to stop them doing it.

Of course, IF.

"Do not touch anything unnecessarily. Beware of pretty girls in dance halls and parks who may be spies, as well as bicycles, revolvers, uniforms, arms, dead horses, and men lying on roads -- they are not there accidentally." -Soviet infantry manual,

Generals4
#70 - 2012-06-06 13:32:02 UTC
Knus'lar wrote:
I see this quite a bit in the rage threads lately. From my perspective, i see a lot of carebears mud flinging, and calling anyone who ganks or does pvp a sociopath. Because apparently only a sociopath would do such a thing. But really, it just seems like a vain attempt at taking the moral high ground.

For real, do some people honestly believe people act the same in game as they do in real life?



Well what that did you expect from people who constantly get called "pubbies" by "pvp'ers". I find the mutual insulting rather amusing, just shows some people on both sides still need to grow up a bit :)

_-Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily. _
Generals4
#71 - 2012-06-06 13:33:34 UTC
Tippia wrote:
Jame Jarl Retief wrote:
Don't tell me a person shouldn't feel guild for such a betrayal of trust just because it's a game.
They shouldn't because it's just a game, and those are legal moves within that game. The other players knew it and accepted it.

You're arguing that people should feel guilty when feinting right and then passing left in football.


Since when do opposing teams in a football match actually trust each other? (You really shouldn't try to use RL analogies unless you are 100% sure they stick 100%)

_-Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily. _
Barbelo Valentinian
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#72 - 2012-06-06 13:38:10 UTC  |  Edited by: Barbelo Valentinian
Knus'lar wrote:
I see this quite a bit in the rage threads lately. From my perspective, i see a lot of carebears mud flinging, and calling anyone who ganks or does pvp a sociopath. Because apparently only a sociopath would do such a thing. But really, it just seems like a vain attempt at taking the moral high ground.

For real, do some people honestly believe people act the same in game as they do in real life?


It's actually probably quite a complex issue.

Compare and contrast. Back at the beginning of the 20th century, there was the idea that sexual liberation would be good, on the basis of a "hydraulic" metaphor that pent-up sexual energy needs an outlet, and once discharged, a person's mind is at peace.

It actually turns out that the more sex you have, the more you want.

So, for this morality and games business, there is a genuine question here: of course, as an intelligent human being, one understands perfectly well the difference between a game and real life. However, some of the sub-processes that go in the brain are pretty dumb, they can't discriminate between real life and a game. And so far as they are concerned, the habits you are building up are your habits, not some game persona's.

So what if you are actually desensitizing yourself gradually by playing a game like EVE? What if at some point in the future you find yourself being callous in real life, in a way that would shock you now, only you're not shocked and think your callousness is ok?

I'm not saying yea or nay either way, but it is a deep question.

Consider the smash hit at E3, this demo from Ubisoft.

One's first thought is "WOW!!!!" right? It truly is jaw-dropping.

But, let's be honest, don't you find yourself having a bit of a moral twinge watching this demo too? Check that bit with the dude pulling the distraught father out of the car - interesting that the character has a sense of morality to get the distraught father out of harm's way. But is that because he's aware that he's the cause of all the chaos, and in fact the direct cause of that little girl's death, and is having a moral twinge himself?

The more "realistic" these games become, the more real they seem to those stupid sub-routines in the brain. When we were slaughtering pixellated Nazis by the truckload in Wolfenstein, the demarcation between game and reality was really clear and obvious. But with something like Watch Dogs, how clear and obvious is the distinction?

EVE is obviously somewhere inbetween - blowing up pixel spaceships, ok, but when you look at some of the scamming going on where they depend on building up pseudo-friendships and gaining someone's trust, the line isn't so easy to distinguish.
Maxpie
MUSE LLP
#73 - 2012-06-06 13:39:18 UTC
I don't think ganking or whatever means you are a sociopath.

I do however believe people's true personalities come out in anonymous situations, such as in an online game.

It's kind of like the guy who doesn't give his seat on the bus to a pregnant or elderly person if he's alone, but if his friends or family are with him quickly jumps up and offers the seat.

No good deed goes unpunished
Ban Bindy
Bindy Brothers Pottery Association
True Reign
#74 - 2012-06-06 13:45:53 UTC
I do not want to be one of the cool kids who runs around killing things randomly. Yes, I think people's behavior in the game reflects the way they behave in real life. That does not mean I think people do exactly in real life what they do in the game. Has nothing to do with PVP, or ganking, for that matter.

You can gank in this game without being a bully; but getting on the forum to crow about it adds a creepy layer to the whole thing. Formulating a belief system about the evil of miners in Eve adds yet another layer. This is the creepy behavior, not the PVP or the ganking.

Gankers freely admit that the reason they like shooting mining ships is to ruin somebody's day. Does that sound like game behavior or real-life behavior to you?

And, frankly, thinking you're the "cool kid" because you're a ganker` and that people are jealous of you is probably a reflection of who you are in real life.
Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#75 - 2012-06-06 13:48:59 UTC  |  Edited by: Tippia
Generals4 wrote:
Since when do opposing teams in a football match actually trust each other?
If they're clever, they don't. Just like with the other players in EVE.

…and that's before even going into how that poor tricked footballer will suffer real-life consequences whereas the tricked EVE player will not.
Tobiaz
Spacerats
#76 - 2012-06-06 13:55:35 UTC  |  Edited by: Tobiaz
In chess I really enjoy the challenge of forking a queen if the opponent isn't paying attention. Similarly I like to wardec larger corporations in EVE to see if they are paying enough attention to stop me.
Does this make me a sociopath?

How about thwacking miners with Darwin's Hammer, because they refuse to evolve. I'm a huge fan of Hulkageddon and the mayhem and chaos it is causing in EVE's Whoville.
Does this make me a sociopath?

Or perhaps when I like to play a MMO as a singleplayer, only engaging in forms of player interaction when it suits me, not caring or understanding the damage this does to the sandbox, while insulting, threatening, and dehumanizing anyone that interferes. Roll
Does this make me a sociopath?

Operation WRITE DOWN ALL THE THINGS!!!  Check out the list at http://bit.ly/wdatt Collecting and compiling all fixes and ideas for EVE. Looking for more editors!
Sarina Berghil
New Zion Judge Advocate
#77 - 2012-06-06 13:56:18 UTC
Quote:
Does the 'PvPers are Sociopaths' argument bother anyone else?


No because I almost never see the argument. I do get bothered by strawman arguments though. In my experience the argument is more common among gamers that don't play EvE who got the wrong impression of the game.

I don't really know what carebears are in an Eve context, because Eve is a PvP game and carebears play other games. But the most common response I see when killing a mining ship, industrual ship or PvE ship is no response. Which is usually how I respond as well, because I'm busy getting my pod to safety in those cases. The second most common response is either 'gf' or the universal 'because of lag, bugs, the dog ate my homework'.

In the few cases where targets respond with anger, that seems to me to be a perfectly acceptable and normal way to react to an unexpected loss.


There is however a small segment of mostly hi-sec PvP'ers/gankers who seem to be driven mostly by schadenfreude, and some hi-sec dwellers get the wrong impression of PvP because of those. I think thats a shame because it drives people away from better communities and the game in general.
Alexandra Delarge
The Korova
#78 - 2012-06-06 14:02:13 UTC
Ban Bindy wrote:
And, frankly, thinking you're the "cool kid" because you're a ganker` and that people are jealous of you is probably a reflection of who you are in real life.

So, thinking that you are being persecuted by a sociopath and that there is a CCP/Goon conspiracy to drive you from the game is also a reflection of who you are in real life?
RAP ACTION HERO
#79 - 2012-06-06 14:02:27 UTC
hey if it empowers the victims and helps them cope n all that

vitoc erryday
Alexandra Delarge
The Korova
#80 - 2012-06-06 14:09:16 UTC
Sarina Berghil wrote:
There is however a small segment of mostly hi-sec PvP'ers/gankers who seem to be driven mostly by schadenfreude, and some hi-sec dwellers get the wrong impression of PvP because of those. I think thats a shame because it drives people away from better communities and the game in general.

Smacktalk and mocking your opponent is not exclusive to Eve and is a part of many competetive online games.